TexasCHLforum.com

As a visually impaired CHLer who will soon be legally blind, I'm glad my right to self defense is not in jeopardy and would hope you all support my rights just as vigorously as your own.

It's about personal responsibility. You have to know which shots are within your capability and not take the ones that are beyond your ability. It's the same standard I'd expect for all responsible shooters.

A few thoughts:

1) I have a feeling that we will see significantly more people practicing open carry in Texas that in other states. As in - I expect to run across one or two on a typical day just going about my business. I have been to open carry states where it seems more academic then practiced.

2) I hope the big box and chain businesses will focus on 30.07 to avoid visible firearms in their establishment and choose to forego the 30.06 signs. They only have so much real estate at entrances and its a valuable marketing and branding location. How great would it be for them to turn it into an either/or decision instead of a both/and?

3) I want to go even farther in thanking Charles and TSRA. I remember back in the late 20-aughts when open carry was not on his agenda of action items. Still, he did one of the most rare things in this day and age - he listened. So did TSRA. They did surveys, they engage in conversation, they took the time to sift through the noise ane overcome the drag of the knuckleheads to find serious and responsible gun owners pushing for the cause. . .which they then adopted so that it could be done the right way (without compromising concealed carry rights), and tactfully maneuvered through the system. multiple times they had to save open carry from the open carry advocates. Look where we are today!

Thanks again to Charles, TSRA, Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and anybody else who invested time, energy, and expertise to get this done.

K5GU wrote:I'm guessing that a LEO who sees a person with a holstered gun in public has it in his/her mind (suspects) that the person is not licensed, and thus is a criminal?

Or, maybe the LEO sees a person with a holstered gun in public and has it his/her mind (suspects) that the person HAS a license.

After all, the diligent LEO probably realizes that a criminal (or someone with criminal intent) would probably not expose the gun, for obvious reasons.

There's the concern.

The default perspective probably changes department by department, if not LEO by LEO.

Some cities are likely to antagonize open carriers to discourage the practice. I wouldn't put it past some to do a felony stop with guns drawn to intimidate legal open carriers, or to stop and demand to see the license (and call in a check to dispatch) every city block or so.

Most won't, but it's happened in other states.

For the ones that would never do this, the Amendment is insulting.

Also, I know many LEOs that are pro-2A to the core, but there's conflict when they start to think of losing flexibility in doing their job. Sometimes "suspicious" is determined using the smell test, and it doesn't write into a report very well. I can empathize with this - "it didn't seem right," "why?" "because I wasn't born yesterday." They want to keep as many avenues for stopping the suspicious person that fails the smell test as possible.

There are interesting intersections where conservative, pro-freedom, pro-America, and pro-LEO seem to have friction. I get the concerns over "militarization of police", but that is very insulting to most LEOs I know. Their perspective is that the bad guys are more organized and better funded than ever, and they are desperately trying to keep up. It's about safety. I get the discourse between "I don't have to answer that" and "You'd answer if you had nothing to hide." I am a principled / philosophical thinker at the core. I hate pragmatism, but I use it as a tool so that "perfect" doesn't become the enemy of "good" or "better".

All that to say, the law currently prohibits LEOs from gratuitously stopping legal gun owners without suspicion of another crime. Preemptively reasserting it in the law cause unnecessary friction with a group that would otherwise be very supportive. Will somebody abuse it? Probably. So then, with concrete examples, we come back and clean it up once we show the need. Sometimes you have to let story play out and we do ourselves a disservice by trying to fast forward to the end.